The world has an up-and-down relationship with coal.
Countries are using less of it, but building or retaining more facilities to burn it, illustrating how the fuel remains an important backstop even as nations increase clean energy generation.
Coal power capacity last year reached its highest level globally since 2015 due to new power plant construction. It also came as countries in Europe and Asia, as well as the U.S., delayed coal plant retirements, according to a new report by Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit that tracks energy infrastructure. Altogether, coal power capacity grew 3.5 percent from a year earlier.
That happened as coal use fell 0.6 percent — the first decline since the Covid-19 pandemic — due to growth by renewable sources like wind and solar.
